Rebooting the Blog

Last week, a former ESPN Mag editor reached out to ask me a question about a story I wrote nine years ago. He was recounting an anecdote about my reporting of that story, but he couldn’t remember the details. Sadly, neither could I! I stared at my computer screen for a while, trying to remember, then Google’d my story, re-read it and allowed the memories to slowly float back into my mind. Then I remembered an even better resource than Google: this blog.

For many years, I kept a meticulous account of the stories I reported, using this blog as a way to tell the stories behind the stories that made it to print. But I realized last week that it was also a way for me to keep an account of my own life and experiences as a storyteller. I’m not sure when, or why, I stopped  chronicling my work and writing a new post every week. (I guess I could Google that, too.) This February, I covered the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and it was the first time since I launched this website (and since the 2008 Beijing Games) that I didn’t write a daily blog while on assignment at an Olympics.

Laziness? Perhaps. Boredom? Repetitiveness? I honestly can’t say. I do know that once I stopped for a while, it was hard to start again. I tried a reboot around my knee surgery, but I wasn’t even consistent with that series. I think I believed I needed to have a grand hook to write a post, where before, I just wrote about my week. I wrote about whatever story I was working on and whatever topic was on my mind. This blog doesn’t need to be anything more than that. Unlike at the magazine or dotcom, I don’t write with the expectation that anyone will read my words. I miss that freedom. So I’m making a promise to myself to commit to this blog once again.

My experience last week reminded me how important — and fun — this blog was to maintain. Maybe I’ll start by telling behind-the-scenes stories of features I wrote over the past few years. Maybe I’ll post photos from some of my favorite reporting trips. Maybe I’ll highlight people I met along the way who didn’t make it into the stories I wrote. Maybe I’ll just complain about the lack of sunshine in Los Angeles the past two weeks. (I think I just did.)

Whatever comes of this space in the future, one thing is certain … I’ll see you here next week.

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